A Pocketful of Thoughts

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The park behind my house sports a vast array of trees all in the midst of taking off their summerwear. The amber and golden discards lay in puddles, puddles thick enough to wade though up to your shins.

The autumn skies threaten snow, and then part to reveal pale blue.

I feel like the day is undecided.

I turned on the radio on my way to work this week. Two of my favorite stations were already playing the sounds of Christmas, and the mall was beginning to put up the seasonal adornments that make Thanksgiving seem like nothing more than a day off of work.

I reprogrammed the two stations on my radio and have since found two others. I’m not quite ready for winter and Christmas – well, at least not yet. I might steer clear of the mall for another few weeks as well; provided I can quell the temptation of the newest Harry Potter installment.

The zucchini I purchased nearly two weeks ago was thinking of showing the early signs of spoiling. Something needed to be done. I decided to make them into a few loaves of bread that are – even as I am writing this – halfway finished baking. The smell is wonderful and it seems to bring my cold, empty house alive as I listen to a computer full of tunes from my vantage point over the park grounds.

I’ve written about Joni Mitchell before. I’ve written about ‘The Circle Game’ before as well.

As my computer’s playlists shuffled from song to song, I found myself listening to various versions of this one particular, thought-provoking song. I simply cannot pick one version as a favorite; they all have their endearing qualities. They do, however, beckon me to ponder days gone by.

As I cleaned my kitchen, I starting thinking of the lyrics, “The years go by and now the boy is twenty…” I remembered a time when I was singing this song with my old teacher a lifetime ago – back when I was only ten years old. My friends and I would gather around her on the floor in the back of the room with our old songbooks in hand, we’d sing our hearts out as her fingers strummed across the strings of her old guitar.

I loved music time.

Simple reason why I play the guitar with my own class today, isn’t it? Unfortunately we missed music yesterday due to a plethora of other things which needed to be done. I need to not miss that with my students…in fact, a few weeks ago I gave them the choice to either have read aloud or music.

Music won, hands down.

But then again, I’d have voted for it, too.

In writing this post I realize that I haven’t written about any of Joey’s exploits lately, either. Not to say that there haven’t been any…heaven knows I could write volumes, only many of these moments I have chosen to simply enjoy at the time and then forgotten to write down.

But still, I do still have many in my little notebook.

You know what? I have an idea.

It is a brilliantly wonderful idea…to celebrate teaching and Thanksgiving I have decided to have “A Week of Joey.” One whole week of Joey posts. Sure, I might just throw something else into the mix as well, but for the week – one Joey post per day. After all, when he’s not driving me crazy, I find myself smiling. I think I could use the smiles, too.

As I look off into the park I can see an elderly man is now strolling along with his metal detector, looking for treasures buried away in that ocean of leaves.

I hope he finds his sunken ship of riches.

Heaven knows that I’ve found mine...







This version by Tom Rush has embedding disabled.